{"id":80578,"date":"2025-08-13T21:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T21:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80578\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T21:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T21:35:11","slug":"court-asks-why-trump-sued-maryland-federal-judges-over-migrant-removals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80578\/","title":{"rendered":"Court asks why Trump sued Maryland federal judges over migrant removals"},"content":{"rendered":"

BALTIMORE (AP) \u2014 A judge on Wednesday questioned why it was necessary for the Trump administration to sue Maryland\u2019s entire federal bench<\/a> over an order that paused the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen didn\u2019t issue a ruling following a hearing in federal court in Baltimore, but he expressed skepticism about the administration\u2019s extraordinary legal maneuver, which attorneys for the Maryland judges called completely unprecedented. <\/p>\n

Cullen serves in the Western District of Virginia, but he was tapped to oversee the Baltimore case because all of Maryland\u2019s 15 federal judges are named as defendants, a highly unusual circumstance that reflects the Republican administration\u2019s aggressive response to courts that slow or stop its policies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At issue in the lawsuit<\/a> is an order signed by Chief Maryland District Judge George L. Russell III that prevents the administration from immediately deporting any immigrants seeking review of their detention in a Maryland federal court. The order blocks their removal until 4 p.m. on the second business day after their habeas corpus petition is filed.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit in June, says the automatic pause impedes President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> authority to enforce immigration laws.<\/p>\n

But attorneys for the Maryland judges argue that the suit was intended to limit the power of the judiciary to review certain immigration proceedings while the administration pursues a mass deportation agenda<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe executive branch seeks to bring suit in the name of the United States against a co-equal branch of government,\u201d said Paul Clement, a prominent conservative lawyer who served as Republican President George W. Bush\u2019s solicitor general. \u201cThere really is no precursor for this suit\u201d<\/p>\n

Clement listed several other avenues the administration could have taken to challenge the order, such as filing an appeal in an individual habeas case.<\/p>\n

Cullen also asked the government\u2019s lawyers whether they had considered that alternative, which he said could have been more expeditious than suing all the judges. He also questioned what would happen if the administration accelerated its current approach and sued a federal appellate bench, or even the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you probably picked up on the fact that I have some skepticism,\u201d Cullen told Justice Department<\/a> attorney Elizabeth Themins Hedges when she stood to present the Trump administration\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

Hedges denied that the case would \u201copen the floodgates\u201d to similar lawsuits. She said the government is simply seeking relief from a legal roadblock preventing effective immigration enforcement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is a plaintiff here because the United States is being harmed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cullen, who was nominated to the federal bench by Trump in 2020, said he would issue a ruling by Labor Day<\/a> on whether to dismiss the lawsuit. If allowed to proceed, he could also grant the government\u2019s request for a preliminary injunction that would block the Maryland federal bench from following the conditions of the chief judge\u2019s order. <\/p>\n

The automatic pause in deportation proceedings sought to maintain existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of the court, ensure immigrant petitioners are able to participate in court proceedings and access attorneys and give the government \u201cfulsome opportunity to brief and present arguments in its defense,\u201d according to the order.<\/p>\n

Russell also said the court had received an influx of habeas petitions after hours that \u201cresulted in hurried and frustrating hearings in that obtaining clear and concrete information about the location and status of the petitioners is elusive.\u201d Habeas petitions allow people to challenge their detention by the government.<\/p>\n

The administration accused Maryland judges of prioritizing a regular schedule, saying in court documents that \u201ca sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give Defendants license to flout the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the judges named in the lawsuit is Paula Xinis<\/a>, who found the administration illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia<\/a> to El Salvador in March \u2014 a case that quickly became a flashpoint in Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown. Abrego Garcia was held in a notorious Salvadoran megaprison, where he claims to have been beaten and tortured.<\/p>\n

The administration later brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. and charged him with human smuggling in Tennessee. His attorneys characterized the charge as an attempt to justify his erroneous deportation. Xinis recently prohibited the administration<\/a> from taking Abrego Garcia into immediate immigration custody if he\u2019s released from jail pending trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALTIMORE (AP) \u2014 A judge on Wednesday questioned why it was necessary for the Trump administration to sue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,9097,2302,12,56569,793,56568,12805,790,14270,3130,2221,8640,8641,3,56567,14273,111,56566,12202,10585,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,5148,800],"class_list":["post-80578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-baltimore","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-elizabeth-themins-hedges","tag-general-news","tag-george-l-russell-iii","tag-george-w-bush","tag-immigration","tag-kilmar-abrego-garcia","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-maryland","tag-md-state-wire","tag-news","tag-paul-clement","tag-paula-xinis","tag-politics","tag-thomas-cullen","tag-trump-lawsuits","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-virginia","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}